Inner Child Healing

     I have recently been reminiscing on my childhood and realized I have yet to address the importance of inner child healing. Your inner child is essentially your childhood self. Most adults are stunted versions of their traumatized inner child. Outside of systemic influence, many personal triggers stem from childhood experiences that have long-lasting impacts. No one has a perfect childhood because parents are imperfect, trying their best with limited parental guidance.

    Your inner child might yearn for reparenting because they never received healthy parental guidance. This can involve meditating by recalling your childhood memories and replaying them by showing up for yourself how you would have wanted your parents to show up for you. Journaling is another great way to reflect on your childhood struggles. Whether you are aware or not, when traumas are suppressed, your subconscious will limit your growth!

      A great example is how whoopings, beatings, hitting, or slapping children are practically justified in our society. Speaking specifically from the African context, I fear it is practically a rite of passage! Most of our parents were subjugated through the same physical violence so, unfortunately, they are still in their traumatized childhood state. Acknowledgment of repressed trauma is the first step towards eventually unpacking it.

     It took me a very long time to acknowledge hitting children as physical abuse! Currently, I am barely coming to terms with the fact that abusing children also falls under domestic abuse because it happens in the home! It is incredibly hard to rationalize that our parents are probably our first abusers. However, without intervening in these generational cycles of violence, what becomes of our future descendants? Intentionally connect with your inner child to be in control of your childhood traumas instead of your traumas taking control of your life!